


i’m a spark (and you’re a boom).

by katarama



Series: leave this blue neighborhood. [8]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (Pre-Drug Addiction), Alcohol, Chubby Jack Zimmermann, Flashbacks, Friendship, Insecurity, Locker Room, M/M, Medication Reference, Party, Past Fatphobia Mentions, Pre-Draft, Sleepovers, Social Anxiety, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 00:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10651605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: Jack wants to ask Kent why he’s bothering.  Why Kent won’t leave it be, and why Kent seems to think that anyone wants Jack hanging around at their party.  They never did on any of Jack’s other teams, even back when it was cheesy kiddie birthday parties.  Some things may be different in the Q, but Jack can’t see this being one of them.But Kent doesn’t even give Jack time to say yes before he’s reaching back into his pocket and asking for Jack’s number and typing it into his phone.





	i’m a spark (and you’re a boom).

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  **If you're new to this series, start[HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10586022).**

**September 2006**

 

 

“Hey Parse, you coming over to mine?” rings out across the mostly-empty locker room.  One of their first-line D-men, one of the older boys, is shoving the last of his tape into his bag.  “I’ve got some _friends_  coming over from school.”

“Friends with boobs, bro,” his d-man line partner says, just in case it wasn’t clear enough before.

“Yeah, sure, man.  I’m down,” Kent says.  It isn’t too far into their first season together, isn’t even to the point where they’re having regular season games, and Jack is already starting to figure out that there isn’t much Kent Parson isn’t down for.  

“Sweet!  Zimmermann, you game?”

This part Jack still hasn’t quite figured out.

The part of hockey where he goes out onto the ice and skates and has a stick in his hand and a puck on the ice he’s pretty good at.  Nowhere near what his dad was at his age, but he’s trying, and he has two years of the Q to work hard and get up to speed.  The hardest part about being out on the ice so far was the week-long search for who to put on Jack’s other wing to balance him out, which was honestly a little bit mortifying in and of itself.  But once Kent settled that question, the hockey part has been exactly what Jack hoped it would be.  It’s a lot of practice under very focused coaches who don’t let him slack.

It’s the other part that’s always tripped him up, and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change here.  It’s being on a team of mostly older guys who are starting to look thick and muscled and talk about tits when the coaches aren’t around.  It’s being on a team with a group of strangers who are serious about hockey, but not the way Jack is, and who tease him a lot that he needs to lighten up.  Jack hoped that being in the Q would be better than the minors, and to some degree, it is.  No one’s made fun of him yet for his chubby cheeks or soft belly, because they can see that he’s strong and that he’s good at hockey.  No one’s said anything to his face about his dad yet, though Jack has overheard some of the whispers.

Jack doesn’t know how to navigate parties after practice, so he hasn’t said yes yet.  He’s sure it’s only a matter of time before they stop asking, but he doesn’t have a lot of experience with being invited at all, so this whole saying no part is still pretty new in and of itself.

“Not tonight,” Jack says, sending them a small smile.  “Thanks, though.”

“‘S cool.”  The D-man zips his bag and swings it over his shoulder.  “Feel free to drop by if you change your mind, though.”

“I will,” Jack promises, though he doesn’t really intend to change his mind at all.  He waves over his shoulder as the older kids leave, waiting until the voices fade from the hallway before finally starting to slowly work off his sweater and his shoulder and chest pads.

He’s down to his undershirt and his shin guards when the metallic clang of a locker shutting makes him jump.  He tenses for a moment, and when he hears another set of clanks behind him, he finally has to turn around.

The metal chair from the corner of the locker room has been unfolded and opened facing the door, but the person sitting in it has his legs planted on the ground and his front facing Jack.  Jack has never once forgotten when Kent Parson was in a room before, because when he’s there, he tends to fill up every single bit of empty space there is.  But this time, apparently, Jack was either so out of it or Kent was so quiet that Jack somehow managed not to notice, because Kent is sitting backwards on the chair, his forearms and elbows resting on the seat’s back and his fingers zooming across the keyboard on his phone.

“Um,” Jack says, because this part of things is definitely not normal.  He and Kent talk some, but only barely more than Jack talks to the guys not on his line.  He doesn’t have anything against Kent.  Kent is just… loud.  And bright.  This kind of stuff, the being on a team stuff, seems to come easily to him.  So it’s natural that he’s always where the crowds are, which is exactly where Jack is not.

“Sup?” Kent asks, and Jack is no less baffled.  It must show on his face, because Kent snorts and puts his phone away, tucking it back into his pocket.

“The other guys say you stay late in the locker room with your gear on because you sneak back out onto the ice after,” Kent says.  “I didn’t buy it, but I figured that if it were true, I might as well stay, too.  Get some extra practice time in, you know.  Never hurts.”

“Oh,” Jack says.  He takes the velcro off his hockey socks and strips them off, not quite meeting Kent’s eyes.  “No.  Coach won’t let me go back out after hours.  He said you have to have to be a captain or an alternate captain to get the keys.  Until then, once I’m off the ice, I’m done for the day.”

The laugh that leaves Kent’s mouth echoes in the empty locker room.  “Of course you actually tried,” Kent says.  He pauses, thoughtful.  “I could get Cap to make you a set of keys, if it’s that important to you.  That costs, like, ten bucks at the hardware store, max.”

“Why?” probably isn’t the most polite response to that, but it’s what leaves Jack’s mouth.  When Kent snorts again, though, Jack figures that offense probably wasn’t taken.

“Unless one of us fucks up bad or some hotshot rookie comes along, we’re gonna be linemates for the next two years.  And it’s only a matter of time before you’re captain, anyway, so it’s just giving you keys, what, like.  A couple months early?”

“There’s no guarantee that I’m going to be captain next year.  Or at all,” Jack says, though he’s already heard whispers.  There’s no one from the year above them that’s got the A, and their current captain is looking at a decently high draft pick at the end of the season.  “I have to work hard and show the coaches that I have what it takes, just like everyone else does.”

“It takes two seconds to see that you have what it takes.  It’s just a race to see who gets the A,” Kent says, dismissively.  For how casual his tone is, though, his gaze is intent on Jack’s face.

His eyes look gray today.  The day Jack met him, they looked green.  

“What are you doing here?” Jack finally asks, because if he doesn’t, then Kent’s just going to sit here staring at him.  It’s instinctual to be uncomfortable with that sort of direct attention, especially when Kent sounds so knowing.  Jack’s only in his thin undershirt and his Under Armour leggings, which feels way too naked to have Kent staring at him and acting like he knows what’s going to happen and is just waiting for it to play out.  

Jack knows that he just has the benefit of extra help from his dad, and that with the coaches in the Q, everyone else is going to catch up to him really quickly.  He doesn’t need Kent Parson to know that, too.

“Why do you always stay behind after?” Kent asks.

“That wasn’t an answer,” Jack points out.

“And neither was that,” Kent replies.  “We can try it again and see if either of us knows how to answer questions, or I can ask you a new one?”

“I like the quiet,” Jack says.  It isn’t entirely true, though it’s also not a lie.  He would rather have the empty locker room than the full one.

“I wanted to ask you to come hang out with us tonight.”  Kent must see the way Jack tenses up, because his brows furrow.  “You know we don’t bite, right?  Unless that’s your thing, and if it is, go for it, bro.  Probs not with the other guys, though you never know.  But for all the shit they say about puck bunnies, it’s mostly just the team chillin’ out and drinking shitty booze.”

“You don’t want me there.  I’ll talk about hockey a lot,” Jack warns.  “I’m not exciting.”

“Your parents are Bob and Alicia Zimmermann,” Kent says, and for once, it doesn’t sound derisive, just disbelieving.  “You’re the most exciting person any of them have ever met.  And fuck them, if they don’t want you there.  We can bail if they’re shitheads.”

Jack wants to ask Kent why he’s bothering with this.  He wants to ask why Kent won’t leave it be, and why Kent seems to think that anyone wants Jack hanging around at their party.  They never did on any of Jack’s other teams, even back when it was cheesy kiddie birthday parties.  Some things may be different in the Q, but Jack can’t see this being one of them.

Kent doesn’t even give Jack time to answer before he’s reaching back into his pocket and asking for Jack’s number and typing it into his phone, Jack’s hockey bag vibrating a few seconds later.  Jack is starting to think that Kent doesn’t wait for much of anything at all before he makes decisions.  Jack has an even more unnerving, creeping suspicion that if he let Kent, Kent would drag Jack right along with him every step of the way.

“If you change your mind and decide to come, text me,” Kent says as he finally gets up from his chair.  Jack breathes again at the redirection of Kent’s focus as Kent folds the chair back up and puts it in the corner of his room.  “One of the older guys is driving me, we’ll swing by and get you.”

“Fine,” Jack says.  

He doesn’t think that it’s gonna happen, but agreeing to that much seems like the barest minimum.

When it comes to socializing with the team, he can at least do the bare minimum.

* * *

 

Jack makes the mistake of telling his mom at dinner that some of the guys from the team invited him over, and what starts out as a story about how weird his linemate is ends in his mother beaming and proud because Jack is making friends.

“You’re going, right?” she asks.  “I could drive you up there, but I know it’s not cool to have your mom driving you places still.”

Jack thinks it probably is cool when the mom is a former supermodel, but the last time he introduced his mom to a hockey friend, they blurted that they had a picture of her in a swimsuit hanging on their wall, so Jack isn’t eager to repeat that incident any time soon.  Jack can’t stand to see her so hopeful, though, especially when his dad said a warm word or two about responsible team bonding.

“Kent said to text, and that he’d come pick me up,” Jack says, trying not to sound as resigned and filled with dread as he feels.

Kent replies to his text quickly and gives him a time, and Jack showers and weeds through his closet to try to find something to wear.  He nearly texts Kent to ask about the dress code, but from what Kent said about what the parties are usually like, Jack thinks he would probably sound silly.  So he picks out a shirt and a pair of jeans and lets his hair air-dry while he watches the news and waits.  

He has a moment’s pause when he’s checking to make sure he has everything he needs.  His keys and his wallet and his phone are all shoved into pockets, but there’s a bottle of pills sitting in his dresser drawer that could make the night go a whole lot easier.  He closes the drawer when he remembers what Kent said about cheap booze, deciding that maybe tonight he’ll pass.  Jack thinks he probably won’t drink, because it should be low-key, but he isn’t going to risk it, just in case.  Even Jack knows that alcohol and pills aren’t supposed to mix.

Both of his parents answer the door when the doorbell rings.  It’d be one of the most embarrassing moments in Jack’s life if it didn’t appear to be just as mortifying to Kent, who suddenly seems to have lost all powers of speech for what is probably the first time in his life.

“I’ll get this,” Jack says, grinning.  Kent only manages to squeak out words telling Jack’s mom and dad that it was nice to meet them, and Jack chirps Kent all the way to the car.

It’s the only time the entire night in which Kent doesn’t have something to say.

* * *

 

Jack goes in planning not to drink, but he realizes less than a half an hour in that that just isn’t going to happen.  What he thought was going to be a relatively casual get-together is actually a packed, smoky basement that makes Jack’s eyes water and his nose itch, and loud music and way more strangers than Jack expected.  He gets a few friendly high fives and butt slaps from teammates who are shocked and pleased to see him there, but he realizes that he has no idea what to do with himself in environments like this.

He finds an empty seat on the couch and fiddles with his phone to make it look like he’s doing something, even though he doesn’t really have that many people to text.  Kent goes over to the drinks table and strikes up a conversation with a whole group of strangers, and even Jack can see through the smoke in the room that one of the girls in the group is already making eyes at him.  Jack really can’t blame her.  Jack’s seen Kent on the ice, seen the way he goes focused in an instant, seen the way he pushes himself.  And that’s beautiful.  In a reckless sort of hockey way, that is.  But it’s different from this sort of setting, where Kent looks like he isn’t pushing himself at all.  He looks comfortable and natural as he sips at his drink and talks and laughs that loud, ridiculous laugh and stares at people intently while they talk like he actually gives a shit, for just that moment.

Jack is very, very much out of his element, and Kent is very much not.

It does surprise Jack, though, when Kent takes a moment to glance around the room and spots Jack on the couch.  Kent sends Jack a smirk that Jack instantly knows means trouble, and that’s confirmed when Kent grabs a can from the table and starts walking in Jack’s direction.

“You looked a little lost,” Kent says.  He leans in closer than Jack is used to, his mouth and his face in Jack’s personal space bubble.  His eyes don’t look the same vivid green they did earlier, and Jack wonders how they do that, and if he’s going to keep noticing every time Kent gets this close.

“Loud music,” Kent says as he hands Jack the can.  “Look, it’s unopened and everything.  You seemed like you could use it, and no matter how gross it is, it’s better than the vodka, I promise.”

Jack hesitates for a second, but he takes it and pops the tab.  Kent is right - the first taste is unpleasant, at best.  But he doesn't have practice in the morning, so he figures there’s no harm in taking the edge off just a little bit.  Otherwise, he’s going to be sitting there messing with his phone all night long and avoiding making eye contact with anyone for too long, silently hoping that someone will take pity and come talk to him while also silently hoping that no one will notice he is there so he can get through this night unscathed.

The alcohol helps.  Not the first can of beer so much, but the second and third ones definitely help more.  He gets used to the taste, though he still wouldn’t exactly call it pleasant.  It makes it easier to talk with the teammates that flit in and out.  Most of them seem relatively friendly, though he thinks Kent helps with that as much as the booze does.  Sitting there on the couch, people just kind of come to Kent, and all Jack has to do is say something every once in a while that doesn’t make him sound too weird.  He’s asked a lot of questions by one of the many pretty girls that seem to want to get their hands on Kent’s cowlick.  If Jack were drunker, he would follow that same impulse, especially as Kent’s cheeks get more flushed and his hair gets a little sweatier.  If Jack rolled the cowlick around his finger, he thinks it might stay curled that way, though he doesn’t know Kent that well, anyway, and Kent would probably kill him for trying.

“Hey, I’m gonna go grab some air,” Jack says after what feels like ten hours but is actually only two and a half.  Kent nods, and Jack ducks out, going out through the sliding glass doors where he saw the D-men head out earlier to the back porch.  He realizes once he’s out there that he may have made a minor miscalculation; while the air is clearer outside, it’s also cooler, and he thinks he may have left his jacket in the car while the air was still warm out.  He is a little flushed from the beer, but not enough that he can’t feel the chill settle in.

He sits down on the bench on the porch, anyway, looking out on the now-empty backyard.  He pulls his phone out and fiddles with it for a while, finally going back to his address book and adding a new contact for Kent, laboring over what to call him before settling with plain old, “Kent Parson.”  He debates texting his mom to let her know that he’s safe and okay, but he’s not quite sure what the plan is for the rest of the night, and he thinks that it might be silly to text her now when she told him not to worry about staying out late on a non-school night.

He’s not sure how long he’s outside, staring at the trees and the few stars visible in the inner suburbs of a city, before the glass doors slide open and Jack is scooting down on the bench so Kent can sit next to him.  Kent smells like sweat and smoke, but he clearly ditched the red solo cup he had been holding.  He plops down empty-handed next to Jack.

“How do you feel about crashing at mine tonight?” Kent asks.  His body is warm against Jack’s side, and it takes a moment for Jack’s brain to catch up with Kent’s words.  “I don’t think your parents are too worried about me, based on my charming introduction.”

“Haha.”  Jack smiles loosely at Kent, and Kent grins wider than Jack thought was possible.  “You didn’t compliment my dad’s thighs or my mom’s boobs.  It’s happened before.”

“I was pretty fucking close, man,” Kent jokes, and it gets another small laugh out of Jack.  “Don’t worry, though, Zimmermann.  Jack.  You need a goddamn nickname, I can’t say Zimmermann when I’m reassuring you that there’s enough going on here that I don’t want to fuck your dad.  Can’t have you getting a complex or anything.”

“Don’t say those words together that way ever again, and I’ll be reassured,” Jack says.  

When Kent’s grin fades, they’re left with the quiet of the air around them, only the soft blowing of the wind in the trees dampening the silence.  For the briefest moment, Jack feels intensely grateful.  The night overall was kind of a mess, and though he knows it was good for his teammates to see him there and making an effort, he knows that he’ll be saying no to at least the next few of these.  If they invite him again.  There were some really fun moments, but Jack thinks that overall, he’s just really bad at parties.  And seeing how someone like Kent, who is actively good at them and seems to actively enjoy them, navigates them so seamlessly just reminds Jack how truly terrible at them he is.  Maybe it’ll get better when he settles into the team some.  Maybe it would’ve gone more smoothly if he had opted for meds over booze, or if he had drank more.

Jack doesn’t know.  He’s just grateful that, if he had to go, he went with Kent.  Because he doesn’t know anyone else on the team who would’ve decided it was a good idea to chase him down and coax him out of his shell, but who also then wouldn’t ditch him when he turned out to be pretty awkward and quiet.  Jack bets, more than anything, that Kent would rather be back inside than outside on the cold porch in the mostly-dark night.  But he’s sitting here with Jack, because he talked Jack into coming, and because Jack at least tried it.

“It’s too late,” Jack says, finally, deciding that there’s something about the moment that deserves a quiet confession.  The little bit of honesty that Jack didn’t have in him earlier.  “On developing a complex.  I was a bug-eyed baby.  They call it cute when you’re a chubby baby or toddler.  They quit calling it cute when you’re a fat kid with a famous hockey player father and a supermodel mother.  They ask where things went wrong.  That’s why I don’t like changing with the rest of the team around.”

“Is that also why you didn’t let the cute girl from earlier suck your dick?” Kent asks.  

The question takes Jack by surprise, makes him choke on his spit, but Kent looks unapologetic.  

“Not to downplay the shit you faced,” Kent says seriously.  “That’s fucked up, and no one should have treated you that way.  And if you change with the rest of the team around and anyone says shit, I’ll deck ‘em.  But the not dick-sucking.  Is it a self-esteem thing, or…?”

“I don’t really do casual sex,” Jack says.  “Not with people I don’t know.”

“Huh,” Kent says.  For a second, Jack thinks that Kent might say something meaningful or poignant.  He’s not sure what possibly could have made him think that, because he’s positive Kent’s way drunker than he is, and Jack doesn’t exactly think Kent is the king of eloquence and thoughtfulness even when sober.

“I’m sorry,” Kent finally says.  “It sounds like you’ve put up with a lot of crap.  With people hitting on your parents and being dicks to you.  I… keep feeling like I should say something back, besides fuck them all.  Some sort of trade, a secret for a secret.  I think that’s how this stuff works, right?  Like truth or dare, but with no dares.  But I don’t have any big personal confessions lined up for tonight except for that it’s not even late, and I’m really fucking tired and ready to go home.  People are kinda exhausting sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jack says.  He’s surprised to hear it from Kent, but he definitely, definitely knows.

“This kind of shit is fun for like.  A couple hours, max.  But then it’s the end of the night, and everyone’s running around trying to hook up, and I… I’m like you.  I don’t really do casual sex with people I don’t know, either.  People think I do, because the flirting is fun.”  Kent pauses.  “It is, by the way.  Flirting.  It’s fun.  You should try it sometime.”

“Nah,” Jack says.  “I’ll let you handle it.”

“Your loss,” Kent says, but it’s calmer.  He seems to be losing steam fast.  

It isn’t much longer before Kent gets a ping on his phone telling him know their ride is there.  Jack texts his mom to let her know that he’s staying with Kent, and when she okays it, he promises her that he’s safe.  His coherent texting seems to reassure her, because she isn’t worried enough to call him, and she makes sure he’s good for a ride home the next morning.

Jack borrows one of Kent’s biggest t-shirts to sleep in, though Kent insists that there’s really no need for Jack to wear one at all.  Kent settles into bed himself with no shirt on, and he looks so comfortable with himself that it makes Jack wish that, just for a second, he had one ounce of Kent’s bravado and self-confidence and coolness.

“There’s plenty of room for you up here, if you don’t wanna go the sleeping bag route,” Kent offers.  But Jack shakes his head, because at the end of the day, he’s mostly a coward.  He’s pretty much the furthest thing from cool, and he thinks it’d be even more noticeable if he woke up next to a half-naked teammate, awkward and shy and self-conscious.

“The sleeping bag is fine,” Jack says.  “Thanks, though.”

“Night Zimm-,” Kent pauses.  “Zimms?  It’s shorter.  It’s better than people getting too creative.  And we could match.  Me shortened to Parse from Parson, and you shortened to Zimms from Zimmermann.”

“Yeah,” Jack says.  “Parse and Zimms.”

Jack thinks over the day in his head, and it seems surreal that he wound up here.  On the floor of Kent Parson’s bedroom, with Kent assigning Jack a hockey nickname to match his own.  Jack feels a little bit warm and a lot accepted, and it definitely isn’t a feeling he’s gotten much before.

It’s a feeling he really likes, though, and if getting this feeling means putting up with a party every once in a very rare while, then he thinks he can do that.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](http://polyamorousparson.tumblr.com).


End file.
